The RCGP has dropped an online course on gender dysphoria following GP concerns that they are being expected to prescribe outside of their clinical competence.

The e-learning course, launched in 2015 in partnership with the charity Gender Identity Research & Education Society (GIRES), was developed in response to the ‘lack of high-quality clinical guidance’, the RCGP said.

However, the RCGP decided to remove the course from its website in December as it could create 'unrealistic expectations for patients regarding the role of the GP in initiating treatment’.

GP leaders said they should not have to 'bear the brunt of poor access to specialist gender reassignment' and argued they do not have the training to prescribe some of the treatments mentioned.

The RCGP gender dysphoria course provided guidance to GPs on how to prescribe and monitor the medication recommended by the specialist clinicians in the gender identity clinics.

Prior to the removal of the course, the RCGP made a series of changes to lessen the burden on GPs, which included the insertion of additional wording and the deletion of references.

But in a statement, GIRES – which paid the RCGP £7,837 to run the course – said the changes were made without authorisation, and undermined 'the responsibility of GPs to precribe and monitor the medication recommended by the specialist clinicians in the gender identity clinics'.

'Refusal of primary care support is a major detriment and GIRES could not agree to changes in a resource that was meant to help GPs to support transgender people with confidence, when the changes made are in direct contravention of NHS and GMC guidelines, and give GPs excuses to deny access to healthcare for transgender people,' the statement said.

RCGP honorary secretary Dr Jonathan Leach said: 'GPs should not have to bear the brunt of poor access to specialist gender reassignment services by being put in a position where they are being asked to prescribe treatment that they are not trained to prescribe or monitor safely without expert support'.

'In the vast majority of cases, trans patients will present to the GP with the same conditions that cisgender patients do. But new presentations of gender reassignment are exceptional in general practice - it is a specialist area of medicine, and treatment should be initiated in specialist care,' he added.

Interesting how the honorary secretary of the RCGP is adopting the language of radical cultural politics 'cis-patients'. Wasn't aware there was such a patient group. Perhaps the RCGP could create a learning module to deal with my DEN.